The invention generally relates to computer software and more specifically to a method for diagnosing and interpreting dental conditions and generating patient medication instructions, specialist referral letters, and prescription forms as well as a clinical and/or radiographic image for printing.
Currently, dentists have a hard time diagnosing oral lesions and follow a tedious and unproductive process. A dentist first has to write a complete and accurate description of the oral lesion. Once he has a description, he then has to look through old textbooks or dental atlases to match a picture. Once the dentist locates a match in one of the books, he then has to look up the appropriate medication for treating the lesion. The books and sources the dentist consults in this process may not contain the most current information available. Often, even if the dentist is able to make a diagnosis, he is uncomfortable using medical treatment such as steroids. More often than not, the dentist ends up referring the patient out of the office to a specialist because he is not able to make a diagnosis or because he is not comfortable using certain medical treatment. If the dentist is comfortable making the diagnosis, he then has to manage the case treatment plan, maintain the patient records, and in this process often generates varying documents, such as a prescription and patient directions, to name a few.
Furthermore, dentists spend a lot of unproductive time analyzing x-rays in performing routine radiographic interpretation of conditions such as caries (dental cavities) detection, periodontal bone evaluation, or periapical bone assessment, to name a few.
The problems with the present processes have created a need for a simpler and less time-consuming means of diagnosing oral lesions and interpreting routine dental conditions as well as improving the dentist""s productivity by quickly producing documents for the case management. The present invention is directed toward meeting this need.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved method for diagnosing and interpreting dental conditions and improving the management of these conditions. It is a further object of the present invention to provide an improved method for helping the dentist use the most current, evidence-based treatment for the condition, thereby improving patient care.
These objects and others are achieved by various forms of the present invention. According to one aspect of the invention, a method for diagnosing oral lesions using a computer system is disclosed. An image of the oral lesion to be diagnosed is captured, and the user selects one ore more descriptor terms to describe the lesion. The system processes the selection and returns a differential diagnosis list that includes the most probable lesions that should be considered. The user can then view details about each of the lesions in the differential diagnosis list, such as the signs, symptoms, and behavior of the selected lesion to determine which lesion in the list is the best match with the lesion being diagnosed. If the user is not able to find a satisfactory match, the user can either refine the descriptor terms to potentially receive a new differential diagnosis list, or in the alternative, generate a referral report to send the patient out of the office.
If the user is comfortable that a proper match has been found, the selection can be finalized and a list of appropriate medications for treating the lesion is then presented. Further medication details, such as a description, indications, adverse reactions, and side effects can be reviewed until the user is comfortable with choosing a final medication to prescribe to the patient. If the user is not comfortable with any of the medication options, a referral report can be generated to send the patient out of the office. Once the proper medication has been selected, the user can generate a patient prescription that can be printed and given to the patient for filling by a pharmacy. The user can also generate a number of reports and documents, such as a patient directions report or a medication report, and an accompanying clinical photograph or radiographic photograph. The system provides the user with a customized treatment algorithm to provide guidance on treating the lesion. The user can additionally save the selected lesion, selected medication, finalized prescription, and acquired image to the patient""s record electronically.
According to another aspect of the invention, a method for interpreting dental conditions using a computer system is disclosed. The user can capture a radiographic digital image of the condition on the system for digital x-ray analysis. The user can optionally also capture a clinical image of the condition. Then, the user can select to have an image optimized by an image processing algorithm for various tasks, such as caries (dental cavity) detection, peridontal bone evaluation, or periapical bone assessment. The system optimizes the image based on the task selected and displays the optimized image to the user for further analysis and interpretation.
In yet another aspect of the invention, a method for diagnosing oral lesions comprises the steps of: (a) acquiring an image of an oral lesion being diagnosed for a patient; (b) outputting to a visual display a plurality of descriptor terms for describing a plurality of oral lesions; (c) selecting a subset of the plurality of descriptor terms to describe the oral lesion being diagnosed; (d) processing the selected subset of the plurality of descriptor terms to output to the visual display a differential diagnosis list of the most probable oral lesions; (e) finally selecting a most appropriate oral lesion from the differential diagnosis list; (f) processing the finally selected oral lesion to output to the visual display a list of appropriate medications for treating the finally selected oral lesion; and (g) finally selecting a most appropriate medication from the list of appropriate medications.
A further aspect of the invention includes a method for diagnosing oral lesions, comprises the steps of: (a) storing in a computer system details about each of a plurality of oral lesions, said details comprising: signs, symptoms, treatment medications, and descriptor terms; (b) acquiring an image of an oral lesion being diagnosed; (c) retrieving from the computer system a unique list of descriptor terms associated with the plurality of oral lesions; (d) receiving in the computer system user input operative to select a subset of the unique list of descriptor terms to describe the oral lesion being diagnosed; and (e) using the computer system to compare the selected subset of the unique list of descriptor terms with the descriptor terms stored for each of the plurality of oral lesions to output a differential diagnosis list of the most probable oral lesions.
According to yet another aspect of the current invention, a method for interpreting dental conditions is disclosed, comprising the steps of: (a) acquiring to a computer system a digital image of a dental condition to be interpreted; (b) selecting a task option to have the image interpreted for a specific task; (c) optimizing the image for the selected task option; and (d) displaying the optimized image.
Yet a further aspect of the current invention includes a method for interpreting dental conditions, comprising the steps of: (a) storing in a computer system an algorithm for optimizing digital images for a plurality of dental tasks; (b) acquiring to the computer system a digital image of a dental condition to be interpreted; (c) outputting a list of the plurality of dental tasks; (d) receiving in the computer system user input operative to select a dental task from the list; (e) using the algorithm stored in the computer system to optimize the acquired digital image for the selected dental task; and (f) outputting the optimized image for analysis and diagnosis by the dentist.